1
"H-hey you."
Lecan stopped having his meal and raised his face.
Three men with farmer attires are standing before him. The one talking to him is a man who seems to be the eldest.
"Tell me, you a Jiitol?"
Jiitol is basically adventurers (Gajenii) in his former world.
"I am."
"W-we"ve got a request for you."
Lecan waited for the guy to continue while partly closing his eyes.
"A Zaag showed up near our village ya see. Please kill it."
"What is a Zaag?"
"Y-you"re an adventurer (Jiitol), and you dunno Zaag?"
"I come from the north. I don"t know much about this country"s magic beasts."
"R-really."
For now Lecan got the three to sit down and heard them out as he continued his meal.
Apparently, White Snow (Zaag) is a very common Youma (Apparitions).
He"s learned the differences between Apparitions and Magic Beasts during his journey. Apparitions are generally a kind of magic beasts, but they"re nothing alike strictly speaking. Magic beasts still need to eat and breed, they"re no different than ordinary beasts in that regard. On the other hand, Apparitions are spirit-like beings that are spontaneously manifested in forests and dungeons, they"re not a living being in every sense of the word. Both Apparitions and magic beasts are monsters that attack people, they"re a target of extermination when found without exception.
White Snow look like a human outwardly, but they posses a horn and have no eyes. Their strength is extremely high, and they never not attack excessively.
Such a creature has shown up near the farmers" village. The first victim was a child. At first the villagers thought it was done by a beast, but a woman got attacked when she went into the forest and they identified that it was a White Snow from the testimony of her husband who witnessed it. The village men grouped together and attempted to hunt the Apparition but they couldn"t find it.
At this rate, they won"t be able to enter the forest. Driven up the wall, they went to this town to look for adventurers.
"The reward is one silver coin. This is the highest we could pool."
One silver coin is enough to stay for five nights at a cheap inn. Three nights with meals. It"s probably an awfully low amount of money for a subjugation where you put your life on the line. However, for Lecan personally, this is a good chance to gather experience.
"Got a place I could stay and a meal?"
"W-we"ll prepare you one."
"Yale (all right). I"ll take it."
2
20 days have pa.s.sed since Lecan started his journey.
Lecan is heading toward the central part of the country. His current objective is to get under a skilled apothecary"s wings at a big town.
There were five gold coins inside the [Parting Gift] bag that Zaidmahl"s household present head gave him. As one gold coin equals 100 silver coins, it"s quite a fortune. And he was given five of it, for a countryside lord like him, it must have been quite a burden.
The [Rewards for Magic Gems] bag had 28 silver coins inside. Lecan cannot recall how many magic gems he had handed over, but this amount of silver coins might be more than they were worth of.
As such, for a foreseeable future, he won"t find himself in dire straits financially speaking. He can enjoy a relaxing journey.
However, Lecan is overwhelmingly lacking in term of this world"s common sense. First, he needs to gain more experience as an adventurer, and go from there little by little.
Thus, this was a windfall for Lecan.
The three farmers live in a village called Gasko, half a day walk away from this town. The town with an Adventurer Intermediate Office is located far from here, thus they were looking for either an adventurer or a skilled adventurer in this town instead, that was when their eyes caught Lecan having a meal.
Lecan with his tall stature stands out. His visage is also ferocious like that of a beast. Which makes him an object of fear, yet that also what made him look reliable in the three farmers" eyes.
3
When they arrived at Gasko Village that day, the sun had already set.
The villagers served Lecan bean soup and a hard bread, so he ate it. It tasted really awful, but it"s probably a luxurious meal for the farmers here.
He was told to sleep in an old barn in the corner of the village. It smelled awful, and the straw was damp, but as someone who had been living as an adventurer his whole life, this bedding was not necessarily unsatisfactory to Lecan.
Early in the morning, the man who talked to Lecan, Wazz, came to fetch him.
Wazz was surprised to find Lecan swinging his sword outside the barn even though it was just right after dawn.
"I-I"ll show you the way to the forest. To the place the woman was attacked at."
"Umu."
The reason Wazz fetched Lecan early must be because he wanted him to quickly defeat the monster and quickly get out of the village. Lecan himself had no intention to prolong his stay in this village, so he immediately put on his coat. He considered whether to put the luggage in the corner of the barn into his or bring it with him, but then it would get in his way, so he decided to leave it there. He won"t lose much even if it gets stolen, though he"d prefer not to have the clothes given to him by Zaidmahl house stolen.
The location where the monster appeared was not far from the forest"s entrance, it wasn"t even 1000 steps away from the village. For victims to appear this close by, no wonder they"re worried sick.
"T-th-then, best of luck to ya. Imma go back to the village now."
"Found it."
"Eee?"
"I found a magic beast-like thing. It might be the so called White Snow (Zaag). Wait there a bit."
Lecan"s has been showing him a blue dot located to the front since a while ago. 300 steps away from here.
Looking closer, there"s something crouching inside a dense shrub near the root of a huge tree.
When Lecan drew his sword at ready, that something abruptly stood up.
I see, it does a.s.sume a human-like form. However, there"s a horn on its head.
There are only holes on the places where the eyes should be. The inside is pitch black, no way to identify whether eyeb.a.l.l.s exist there. This monster probably has some sort of ability to detect things irrespective of physical eyes.
It has a nose-like appendage, but it"s questionable whether there"s nostrils on it.
Its mouth is huge, but Lecan doesn"t see any teeth. However, as it supposedly likes to voraciously feast on humans, it must have a way to bite things off.
BO~~O~~U~~
The White Snow raised both its hands and screamed out loud while staring at empty s.p.a.ce.
"Hii, hiii"
Wazz fell down in fear far in back.
Lecan didn"t feel anything, no fear nothing, from the voice this Zaag let out.
The eerie scream sounds like the sound produced when winds go through a thick pipe, yet it also felt strangely melancholic somehow.
But still, it"s big.
Though this individual might just be on the bigger side by chance, it"s as tall as Lecan. With twice the circ.u.mference.
It almost looks like it"s wrapped in worn-out rags from head to toe, but looking again, these rags appear to be some sort of skin.
Lecan slashed, cutting off the monster"s left arm from the base.
The White Snow draws near Lecan without being affected by that.
Lecan jumps back and observes the monster"s movement.
It moves slowly.
Lecan cut off a branch, quickly pruned away the leaves turning it into an impromptu club and tried to thrust it toward the White Snow.
The White Snow shook off the club with its remaining arm.
As it moves sluggishly, nimble people should be able to easily sidestep it. However, it"s strong. Enough to knock out a human depending on the hit location. Heck, you might even die from a blow at the right spot.
Afterward, Lecan experimented with the White Snow using the club for a while.
It does nothing unexpected in particular, and if it really can only make simplistic moves like these, even dozens of this creature won"t be a threat to Lecan.
It does not look like body fluid would come out of the stump on its left shoulder at all. This truly is not a living creature.
He lop off its head.
After the White Snow fell down, Lecan searched for a magic gem with , but he couldn"t find any.
Apparently, magic gems don"t get generated when Apparitions die.
The monster crumbled into sand.
Lecan went back to Wazz.
"I"ve carried out your request."
"Y-yees."
"Gimme the cash."
After getting his reward, Lecan immediately left the village.
Lecan found out that White Snow could be detected with from this experience. This probably means other apparitions can be detected too. And the color is blue. Lecan"s special ability, shows humans who posses mana as red dots, and those who don"t posses mana as light red dots. Animals as green dots, and magic beasts as blue dots.
In other words, Zaag is displayed as a magic beast. Nonhuman beings that posses mana are probably shown as blue dots on his ability. There might be exceptions in the future so he cannot be perfectly sure, but for now, he should simply regard those detected as blue dots as enemy.